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The Difference the Mantram Makes

Myron shares how he has come to understand the mantram and meditation as truly powerful aids to overcoming unwanted habits within the family context.

Many of us have a family member, sometimes it is the whole family, that
cause us serious agitation and all that goes with it – ill will,
resentment, hostility, jealousy – and all of that coming from self-will
(the desire to have one’s own way). I had been practicing and meditating
some time, but this agitation at family gatherings was not going away
and was quite frankly, a plague that I wanted to be rid of. Through
meditation and practice of the eight point program my awareness of this
problem had come into sharper focus; so I really wanted it to disappear.

My early tries at this were not successful. I would use my intellect to
tell myself not to be agitated when my family gathered together for
holidays; it took me some time to figure out the truth of Easwaran’s
words, that a bad self-willed habit (a samskara, he calls it) cannot be
controlled very well with the intellect; the intellect just gets steam
rolled by the power of the habit. It was a lesson that I had to
experience to really believe.

First Turning Point

One evening after the Tuesday night satsang in Petaluma, as we were
closing the church, my friend Diana and I were discussing the video talk
of Easwaran where he been exhorting us to practice, practice, practice.
We both agreed: “we don’t practice enough.” So I set about changing
this, and started spending hours with the mantram in the week or so
before a family gathering. Standing at the kitchen sink, I would think
about being at the gathering and repeat the mantram, 15 minutes here, 15
minutes there, and every time the mind went to thinking about family,
throughout the day, more mantram. I also interspersed that with
repeating the passage of Jesus that Easwaran liked, three to four
verses, “judge not that you be not judged. . .” Day after day, as I sat down
for meditation, I would remind myself of the desire to be rid of this
self-willed problem, but nothing overt occurred during meditation, no
distractions or insights of any sort ever came up. It was a matter of
relying on Easwaran’s assurance that when we meditate, there are effects
occurring deep in the unconscious that we are not aware of.

Moving Along to Succeeding

More family gatherings went on, sometimes minor agitation, sometimes
major, but I was learning to use lots of mantram repetition the days
before, and found that repetition was especially critical in the morning
before we gathered – if I wanted to have it with me that day. This was an
improvement, but not the thing I really wanted, to be free of this
plague of self-will with family forever.

A Thanksgiving came; once again family was gathering. That week, that
morning, I spent a lot of time with the mantram, and on the drive to the
gathering, realized I was early, and stopped at a park, quiet and
secluded, and did another half hour of meditation. When I got to the
gathering, there were the usual greetings, a half dozen people were
there, and nothing much else was happening, so I sat down on a chair and
proceeded to take in the scene. Suddenly I heard a loud noise, and
looked around quickly to see what that was; it took me a moment to
realize it was the mantram going on by itself in my mind, and it was (so
it seemed to me) really loud. I knew then that this thing, this
self-will I had been fighting for a long while was gone, would be gone.

After Lessons

In the days after that there was no elation, no high emotion; rather, it
was what Easwaran calls “a deep sense of wellness to mind and body alike.” I
also realized it was incorrect to say it was a victory, which would only
feed my ego and let me think “I am the doer.” It was the grace of our
teacher that this happened to me, but Easwaran is quick to point out
that grace is received only after strenuous effort on our part. In this
struggle of mine, against self-will, the power of the mantram had become
51%, just a little more power than the power of the self-willed habit.
It is like chopping down a weed patch, the weeds have been beaten, but
not pulled up by the roots, meaning they can, with a little
forgetfulness by us, regrow, and become a vibrant weed patch once more.
That has meant more work, and continuous work with meditation and the
mantram to stay there; I never take it for granted I cannot slip back
into old resentments at any family gathering. But now I know the power
of meditation and the mantram.

Creating a Personal Retreat

The Best Support as You Get Older

Norma is a longtime meditator – she started in her 30s and was 87 when we talked to her for this interview. She tells how Easwaran’s eight-point program is giving her even more support and purpose in her later years.